


Algernon, or "Catwoman and Robin, the Early Years"

by SusanaR



Series: Impossible Woman [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:33:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3935257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin didn't like Catwoman, at first. He'll joke later that she won him over by bribing him with hot chocolate, but really, it was more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Algernon, or "Catwoman and Robin, the Early Years"

The first time I met Selina was on a dark, rainy rooftop. I'd been patrolling with Batman for a couple of months at that point, and I'd never seen him SMILE at a criminal before. It was more than a little unnerving, and then he sent me the signal to go back to the car. After awhile I began to worry, so I went back. 

It was cold that night, as well as wet. I was still shiny and new and thrilled to be Robin, so I didn't notice then, but it was the type of night that I would have found irritating later in my career. There was enough ambient noise that I was able to more-or-less sneak up on Batman. Well, at least close enough to hear them talking before he knew that I was there. Rare, for him. At the time I was too young to be worried about that, or to realize that it was another sign that he was different, around her. At the time, I was almost nine years old, and I was just proud of myself. I rarely managed to hide well enough to fool him. I did, sometimes, and when I succeeded in being invisible I was prone to eavesdropping. How else was I supposed to learn the things he didn't think I was ready to learn? Someone had to look out for him, and Alfred wasn't into suiting up to go along. 

So I was hiding in the lee of an air vent, listening to my partner get a lecture that he wouldn't have put up with from anybody but Alfred. 

"What in the name of all that's sane do you think that you are doing, dragging a child into your mad quest to take back the night?" She was angry, almost incandescently so, and standing up to the Batman. Hands on her hips, she lectured him with no fear at all. Even his fellow heroes were intimidated by him, but not this thief. 

"It's not your affair." He told her harshly. I felt vindicated by the support from him, as I stood in the rainy shadows. At least until a twitch of his fingers notified me that I'd been seen, and that I was in Big Trouble. Not VERY Big Trouble, which I was grateful for, but a little surprised at. Normally sneaking back to check up on him and a villain after he'd told me to get to safety would result in two weeks grounded, at least, because he viewed it as 'a safety issue.' Selina - Catwoman - was always a different category. "Big Trouble" for checking up on him with her almost always earned me nothing worse than a particularly grueling training session the next day, or that plus an afternoon helping Alfred with some particularly unpleasant chore. Or sometimes just a tuxedo fitting. Bruce was always creative with his punishments. 

"I know that it's none of my business." Catwoman hissed back, "But I always thought of you as a PROTECTOR of the innocent. Not someone who would endanger a child." 

"Back off, Selina." He growled, slipping for one of the first times in my memory and calling a criminal by her first name, of all things. That should have been another hint to me - The Riddler might be Nygma, Two-face was usually Dent, but only Catwoman was only Selina, and never "Kyle." 

"Robin is where he needs to be, doing what he is meant to do." My mentor continued, ending with, "And you should worry about yourself. The Penguin knows that you double-crossed him on the purchase of that brewery." 

"Don't change the subject." She quickly retorted. Then the bat signal lit up, and Batman and I were out of there. I spent the next morning polishing silver and the next evening accompanying Bruce to a charity dinner, ostensibly because I needed more practice blending in at formal occasions. That was where I met Selina Kyle as herself the first time. She made me laugh at least twice by making clever jokes at "Brucie's" expense, and then maneuvering the mayor's wife into making a much larger donation than she'd planned to children's cancer research. 

I decided that Selina Kyle might be nice, but I still didn't like that Catwoman disapproved of me. Well, 'Robin' me. But I didn't mind that she was always the last criminal we went after. She was known to be non-violent, and mostly only stole what her Gothamite victims could afford to lose. 

Maybe a month after we first saw Catoman on the roof top, Batman and I were investigating a new crime syndicate which was trying to get started in Gotham. Well, it turned out that they were working with a recently escaped Joker, and Joker - as he always did - targeted Robin, having his henchmen distract me while Batman was disarming a bomb. Anyway, I got knocked hard on the head, leaving Bruce with the hard choice of getting me to safety versus pursuing the escaping ring leaders and maybe ending the whole matter that night. It was never a hard choice for him, really. No more that it is for me when one of us gets badly hurt - you take care of your teammates first. Always. Still, it was a choice that I didn't want for him to have to make. 

Catwoman had shown up in the middle of the fight, ostensibly because the Joker had betrayed her to Penguin over something having to do with the brewery, which was apparently owned by nuns whom the Penguin had swindled in the past - long story. But she hadn't gotten involved that night, not until I went down after the Joker hit me on the head with a crowbar. 

"Go." Catwoman told Bruce, as she gently lifted me to my feet, "I'll take care of him. Meet me at ...that place near the rings. You know the one." 

To my shock, Batman nodded reluctantly, though he did threaten, "If you so much as harm one hair on his head, or let anyone else...." 

"I don't hurt children. And I don't let anyone else hurt them, if I can help it." 

"Take care. Of you and him." He ordered her gruffly. 

She took me to a bolthole she owned, even knowing that having him and I know where it was meant that she'd have to abandon it to keep it safe from law enforcement. I was still seeing stars, but I do remember that it was brightly colored and comfortable. She patched me up and gave me tylenol, and set me up on a couch with a soft blanket. Then she listened to me as I complained about Joker and this new crime syndicate and people like Tony Zucco whose casual violence killed people and ruined lives, just for money. Really listened, better than Bruce, almost as well as Alfred. I think that might have been the first night that she looked at me -well, 'Robin' me - and really saw who I was. It was definitely the last time that she complained about me being out with Batman, unless it was a particularly horrible case we were investigating. 

Once I felt a little better, she made me soup and hot chocolate with real milk, and she let me watch cartoons. I don't remember falling asleep there, but I must have, since when I woke up it was morning and I was in my own bed at the manor, with Bruce sleeping in a chair by my side. 

She helped us out a bunch of other times. Especially as I got older, I actually resented how she would look out for me in a fight. But I never resented how she would carry two bags of loot on a slow night, and how the one she that she would drop when Batman and I confronted her always contained a box of chocolate croissants and a thermos of hot chocolate. They weren't as good as Alfred's, but they were better than most restaurant fare. And perfect, on a cold night of crime fighting when I would invariably be sent to 'check out the scene of the crime,' (not that Catwoman ever left much in terms of a scene). Meanwhile, my mentor would "pursue the thief.' Once I got to be a bit older, I would take that as code for, 'find your own way to the Batcave. This might take most of the night.' 

We eventually became friends, of a sort, Catwoman and I. Now, I'd always liked Selina, but it wasn't until I realized that she had a sense of humor that I started to like Catwoman, too. The turning point was after everything went wrong with the Joker once. Catwoman had been working with him, sort-of, but she switched sides when the whole thing turned from a jewelry heist into an attempt to flood an entire two-block area with an air-based neurological poison. 

The fight which ended that stand-off took us way out into the warehouse district. After it was over, she asked for a ride home. Batman agreed with a long-suffering air, but she'd taken a few hard hits and I think that he was actually glad to see her safely back to her part of town. 

As we drove back, curiosity about something that she'd said during the fight got the better of me. 

"Catwoman, I've just gotta ask. The Joker? How did you find out that his name is Rupert?" 

Batman gave the two of us an odd look under the cowl. Almost as if to say, 'I know his name and that's not it,' or maybe 'I'm glad that you asked so I didn't have to.' 

With a throaty laugh, Selina explained, "Oh, his name isn't Rupert, unless it's an astonishing coincidence and his name actually is Rupert. Rupert is just the name I picked when he didn't give me a name. I like to know the people I'm dealing with. So that when they go completely off their rocker, I can get their attention. For instance, 'NO, Pamela, it is not a good idea to let Ivan, your man-eating fly trap, grow three times larger. Not if you ever expect to have me visit you here again.' Or, 'No, Harvey, we are not having roast cat tonight, even if your coin did land that way.'" 

I had to shudder at the thought of Ivan three times larger, before grinning to myself again at the thought of the Joker's anger when Catwoman had called him Rupert. "It really pissed him off." I remarked. 

Selina winked at me mischievously. "When someone has the ill manners not to give me their name, I make up one for them. Sometimes it's so awful that they tell me their real name just to get me to stop using it." Selina then turned to regard Batman, "You look like an Algernon." 

I couldn't help but giggle as Bruce gritted his teeth, unwilling to even give her the response of growling or asking her to be quiet. 

"We could call you Algie for short." Selina playfully offered. 

"What about me?" I inquired eagerly. 

Selina cocked her head and looked at me thoughtfully. "Peter." She decided, after a few moments of thought. 

"Peter's not that bad." Bruce surprised us both by remarking. 

"Robin can't give me his name because you're a paranoid psychobat." Selina told him primly, "That's not his fault. It's also good manners to listen to your elders." 

It was a bizarre night, getting a lecture on manners from the Catwoman. When I told Alfred about it later, he agreed with Selina. 

"Under normal circumstances, the young lady would be quite right." He said in his cultured tones, utterly ignoring Bruce who was in a bit of a snit. Selina Kyle had cancelled her appearance at a party we were supposed to attend the next day, citing bruised ribs from a riding accident. 

"She's not a lady. She's a thief. And she takes this all so lightly that she's going to get herself killed someday." Bruce complained harshly. 

"She's pretty capable though." I spoke up for her, and later found myself scrubbing the entire batcave for my efforts.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an excerpt from a longer story that is a Batman/Whitecollar crossover which I've been reading over as I work on a new chapter after a long hiatus. Please feel free to check it out if you're interested. Thanks for reading, either way!


End file.
